


Verpa Dominus

by SecundusPublius



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Futanari, Impregnation, Multi, Pregnant, Roman Republic, Transformation, Violence, cumflation, excessive cum, huge penis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:41:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22829605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecundusPublius/pseuds/SecundusPublius
Summary: A hermit-pontiff of the Roman Republic strives to create the perfect hermaphrodite.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	1. Introduction

Chapter 1.

Deep in the pits a cry was heard. Fausta, the hermit-pontiff, watched from the perch above. Her latest subject was due for a daily observation; the pontiff had low hopes, but an observation was still to be made. 

In the pit - one of nine - was a gaelic woman, well built, with muscled thighs and a delightful pertness to her small breasts. She was of the northern clans - of those who intermixed with the elfines gaelic and the tribes of the germans. She thus had a certain exotic feel to her features, a uniqueness in the pigmentation of her nipples and her vulva, an interesting curve in her waist and a fiery-red mane of hair. A delight. When she first arrived, she was proud, and moved with barely concealed power. She did not answer when spoken to, though Roman she understood. She looked like someone who would endure the leash a thousand times over. 

But Fausta did not own a whip. She despised the article. A magos had no need for physical cruelty. 

The creature in the pit had very little left in the ways of gaelic pride. She was writhing on the cobbled ground, hands locked on her member, masturbating not with abandon, but in agony. She was overproducing. She had to breed. It was too much for her mind. 

Overproduction did not quite describe it. The cobbles of the pit could not be seen under the thick layer of semen mixed with dust. The walls were splattered liberally. Even the edge of the pit was rife with ropes of the stuff, each as thick as a thumb. To clean the pits was a herculean task, and one that had to be done regularly. The musk was so powerful it would dim the mind and take complete control - if not for the wards. Fausta knew with certainty that if the wards were not maintained, she would found herself leaping into the pit long ago - in a heat much, much more powerful than reason. She saw it happen with the occasional slave girl in the stocks. It was an entertaining watch. 

While she reminecented, the gaelic woman noticed Fausta standing on the perch, and mustered strength to rise to her feet. She screamed something in her muffled bar-bar, swinging her hips - and with it, her member. Begging. For more release. For a girl to breed. For a doll to bloat with semen. Anything. 

Fausta was discontent. This one still retained speech - as much as she needed to beg for a warm and moist hole. But beyond that her mental faculties were degraded. She was barely articulate. More animal than human.

But her form… she grew stronger, quicker, capable of wrestling and raping even the most aggressive doll. And the member… it was gigantic, easily a cubit and a finger, darkened, with a small head of an angry, crimson colour. It's width was too large to encircle with one hand. It had skin in excess and veins visibly pulsing. She couldn't maintain an erection, at first: she'd lose consciousness too quickly, but as the transformations went along, the erection stopped being a problem. It never went away. That became the new problem. 

And the production. She would leak all the time, throbbing, even when she regained slight lucidity to eat and sleep. When she would erupt in climax, she floods. Fausta wondered at the mechanism of this copious production many a time. She experimented. She would leave salts of Eros in the pit and provide the woman with a doll or a fresh slave girl. The rut would take hours: until the gaelic woman would lose all feeling, until she would exhaust herself to near death. For hours, she will breed, and breed, and breed. Her victims - by this point "partner" was a word poorly chosen - would be inhumanly distended, womb filled to such an extent that all mobility would be lost. And yet they lived. Something made them survive that priapean ordeal, gave them the sturdiness and the elasticity to partake in the rut. 

And quite often, they did so with great success. 

The dolls couldn't get pregnant, of course. But the slave girls could. While the gaelic woman was out cold, recuperating from her suicidal lust, the dolls would remove the distended female figure from the pen. Never were they conscious in the process, having lost any semblance of mental capacity long ago. 

They would be taken to the study, then, where Fausta would observe them - for months, if need be. Once they regained the capability to walk - usually after a nundina has passed - they would get to enjoy a very simple and pleasurable existence for quite a while while the elfine pontiff would observe the changes of their bodies. 

Draining the excess semen took a long time. It was too thick, similar to cream. The amount was inhumane. Any natural being - a human, an elfine, a ludex - would not produce in a lifetime the amount this gaelic woman produced in the span of an active hour. And then was the fertility. 

The slave girls - Fausta prefered italian market stock, brought from Egypt, Asia Minor and Greece - would have little time to recover for their distorting ordeal, because it would soon begin anew, bur from another source. Their pregnancies - which never failed to take root, ignoring all cycles - would progress naturally; yet the amount of offspring was the surprising aspect. Such was the potency of the seed that in the three cases studied Fausta first misattributed the rapid distention of midriff to an accelerated pregnancy; it would take her merely a month to correct that mistake. They bore children in the multiples. One, a widely-built slave from upper Italy, bore a full ten. 

She assisted with the births - which were much less complicated than the physical state of the body entailed - and observed. Most were boys and girls. Some were, as their father, of both sexes. The boys and girls Fausta sold to slave orphanages in the City. Those of both sexes she sent away to friends in Gaul to be risen there. The Pontiffs shouldn't know what she was practicing. They would not agree with it. 

The gaelic woman was thus a success from the standpoint of her body. The latest serum was perfect. It made a woman into a hermaphrodite of no peer; into a breeding monster, capable of breaking any woman and own her like a child owns a toy. Not one of her many preceding serums gave a result so magnificent. 

The body was perfect. But still there was the question of a mind…

Fausta did not want to create animals. That wasn't in the interest of her clients. Her proteges needed to be sane at all times to fulfill their many potential functions.

But she could not risk changing the serum anymore. The physical results were outstanding - beyond perfect, too good to lose. But she had to solve the problems of mind. Fausta considered her options. They were not many. 

She could try to dosage the serum, to slow the transformation in the hope that the mind would persist through the process. She tried that on a farm girl from Spain, who was built like a silver miner, with an ugly, brutish body, lacking in pleasing curves, but with girlish, pouty face completely out of place on her mannish body. She transformed slowly, maintaining her sanity for the longest time - until her final growth spurt, whereas she would lose all reason and attempt an animal-like escape. It almost succeeded, too: she raped four dolls to an immovable bloat, broke through a metal gate and made it into the forest before the Slithering Catcher got her. 

Fausta chuckled to imagine what would've happened if she got away. How many women could she impregnate in a night, her being in that animalistic rut? A hundred? It would be the biggest single case of cuckolding in the history of the Republic. All performed by a pontiffs escaped changeling. 

Fausta would be the talk of the City - and dead within a week. 

No, dosage did not matter. Maybe there was a way to fine-tune it, but she didn't have enough stock to perfect such a theory. Therapy? Control? 

She tried many ways. The gaelic woman was the latest experiment in a long, long line. The serum was perfect, but the stock couldn't handle it. There was no way around it. She could not find a trick or a way around

Fausta shook her head. 

"Mistress?" 

A doll came close, draped in a dark tunic. Fausta ignored her for a moment. She immensely appreciated the service of her dolls, her blood-woven servants, but their lifeless, mechanical loyalty tired. She tried to give each a body and visage slightly different from one another to make them appear as sisters; it did little to alleviate the problem. 

"It's nothing, Myrmida. Fetch a pair of strong bodied dolls and offer them to the thing in the ninth pit. Her barbaric screams tire me." 

"Immediately, mistress." 

"Are there any news from Arcadia?" 

"Nothing so far, mistress. But it's a long way back. A few days of travel at least." 

"She could've sent a pigeon." 

The doll opened her mouth - and closed it. They were decently intelligent, but had their limitations. She didn't know what to answer - so she said nothing. 

In this way they were much smarter than most people Fausta knew.

She waved the doll off and moved away from the pit, strolling alongside the little gardens towards the elevated portico. Observing the gaelic woman - or the animalistic breeder she became - made her weary. Thus she found herself in the elevated High Garden - a brutish, wild thing, homely by any City standards. But it had a view of the Alpine, and no healer nor magos could better heal a tired soul.

Fausta sighed, then bared a smile. It was chilly; the people of the City might be enjoying the first warm days of the year, but here, in the Cisalpine, the chill of winter would persist for quite a bit longer. 

Yet the elfine did not mind that. She couldn't stand the City. It tired her in many ways and infuriated her in countless others. The bickering and the politics of the pontiffs limited her, the cesspit of Rostra angered her. Fausta was born in the City, earned her first stay and much more in the City, reached greatness in the City - but could not muster a modicum of love for it. She had a house on the Palatine, which she sold and never looked back upon. Her new holdings - a modest villa on the Cisalpine, on the Italian side, blessed not with fertile soils nor anything else fit for financial exploit looked like the typical madness of pontiff born into money yet completely inept in it's management. 

Fausta did not mind such opinions. Those who were interested in her services knew better. Those who were not were of no concern. 

After all, the things she did here couldn't be done at the City - lest the plebs would burn her house. 

…

She expected Arcadia to come back sooner. The management of the villa was taxing. Slaves could not be trusted to handle the operation of her house - nor would they be strong enough, physically and mentally, to manage the stock. This far from the City and this close to Gaul she may also risk revolt. 

She populated the house, thus, with dolls. Loyal, hardy. Capable of easily surviving the outbursts of Fausta's "subjects". But they didn't have imagination. Orders had to be precise. Arcadia somehow mastered it. Fausta, to her irritation, did not. She didn't like how many orders had to be given in order to have a supper. She didn't like how much talking and explaining she had to do. She was patient, but she felt like her time could be better spent. Documenting. Running experiments. Reading and thinking. Perhaps painting, or playing the flute. Anything but trying her best to explain her needs to an automaton of flesh and blood. 

Weird, she then thought, how easy it is to be annoyed by your own creations. Must be the same with children. 

She missed Arcadia very much. She needed her in this house. 

But alas. Arcadia had a task more important than Fausta's daily comfort. If it'll go well, everything will be worth it. And far beyond that. 

The final serum - a tincture of wolfgrass, minotaur blood and seed, olympian golden dust and many, many other things - was too damaging for the mind, yet perfect for the transformation of the body. Her stock wasn't up to it's par. It couldn't handle it. 

Humans lost their minds quickly. The only ludex she tried it on - a good year ago - did not go through the transformation smoothly, and thus was discarded into one of the closed chambers, where she still wails. Elfine stock did not exist - no elfine will be a slave in the Republic, after all. Such is the law. Orcs were a good contender, but no Roman household would dare maintain an orcish slave. Orcs are to be viewed from the safe distance of the amphitheater, after all. 

But what if there was a race, elfine in bloodline, yet denied any protection by the Roman law? A race of high stature, standing at a pace and a cubit on average? Strikingly beautiful, physically strong, statuesque to the very last woman and man? 

There was such a nation, merely forty years ago. Two tribes. Tribes so monstrous they scared the city like nothing else ever did. More than the grotesque creatures of Barca and the vengeful cohorts of King Numa. The Teutones and the Cimbri. The elfinii of the east. The monsters that almost took Rome. The evil whom no Roman law would protect - not even the unbreakable ban on any elfine slavery. 

Perhaps, if Fausta could find such a specimen, if she could locate a woman of that kind, that monster, that enemy… 

Perhaps then she'd have her perfect specimen for her perfect serum. 

…

From the road, the sounds of a heavily-laden cart were heard.


	2. On the end of the road, Home awaits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Dear reader: a foreword, and a forewarning. Please take a minute to read through it. It might, if nothing, save you a lot of time and frustration - or, potentially, give you something beyond the piece of smut you are about to read._
> 
> _First and foremost: this is a long read for a piece of low-brow porn. It is very slow and story-heavy. If you seek a quick and hard-hitting thrill, I'm not the merchant for the job. You see, I am a dirty fetishist. A proper degenerate. To surmise that is not difficult, as one look at the tags should suffice in that regard. But there is a bigger, more perfidious passion at work here. You see, I like the history of Rome._
> 
> _As a dirty fetishist, I did the unthinkable and defiled one of my favorite countries with fantasy trash like elves and dwarves. Yet this is necessary, in my mind, as I truly think that women of extreme penility have little place in Roma Proper, and thus a more fantastical version of it for this degenerate purpose I devised. But much of it is real. A lot of men and women here described existed, and their fates and happenings are scores more interesting that anything I could myself invent. Rome is a fascinating place, unique, thrilling and exotic to our modern mind, but also vaguely familiar. The legacy of those fascinating people we carry to this day. And if this piece of smut-fantastic in any way shall catch your interest, I strongly, from my heart suggest: give Rome, and her history, a chance._
> 
> _Read a novel from the Roma Sub Rosa series by Steven Saylor, who inspired me to try this project to begin with. Listen to a podcast by Dan Carlin, or drop a view for Historia Civilis on YouTube. Reality is stranger than fiction - and often, much more interesting,_
> 
> _For your attention I thank you, and, without a due, I'll start._  
> 

_A vision of Fausta, gracefully provided (for an agreeable fee) by the most talented[Katzenknabe](http://www.hentai-foundry.com/user/katzenknabe/profile). Her profile is a little bare for now - for now. Send some amicability her way. _

The road to Fausta's villa was a narrow one, mostly hidden away from sight by vinaries and little gardens. The soil was not good; but a magos had ways to circumvent the deficiencies of nature, even if it required effort beyond any potential profit. Fausta did not pursue a farmer's profit. But she enjoyed wine. 

__

__

Any guest, thus, was hidden from sight until he approached the final curve of the road. The sound of the approaching cart was loud, and heard from afar, hinting at old man Festus bringing fresh supplies from Ienua. But perhaps…

Fausta made her way to the portico, where the incline of the road could be observed. A few dolls came also, to meet the guests and tend the horses. 

In a minute or so the arrived have become visible. It was a procession. A few on horseback. A few on foot. A large cart, draped with cloth held with rope. They wore cloaks; their horses were tired. To the eye they looked like any other traveler on a Roman road: a citizen with a retinue or a trader.

But Fausta smiled. She knew exactly who her guests were. They were no guests at all. 

By the lonely horn of the forwardmost rider, she recognized Arcadia, and felt the first spark of happiness of the last few days. 

…

They sat in the large study, where light shone through a wide opening in the ceiling and flowerpots of aurelic sunblooms pleased the eye. Arcadia, not Fausta, ordered food to be served, and the mistress was grateful. She would not admit how much she missed the sound of Arcadia's voice. Stern, with roughness more suited for a decanus in the legions than a woman managing a house, but with such a hidden capability for sultriness… 

They ate light and spoke little while they did so. Fausta was old, even if no part of her elfine looks betrayed it. She didn't like to rush things where no such need existed. Arcadia, on the other hand, would not speak until asked to. The days of her slavedom were long past - the iron ring she wore could prove so. But her loyalty and her respect were stronger than chains. 

They soon finished the courses. Fruits were brought together with young cheese and biscuits sweetened with honey. Fausta partook in more wine. Arcadia, for now, refused. 

"You shouldn't hold back, Arcadia. Today, I'll offer you any wine. My father's stock, if you'd so desire." 

"I'm too tired from the road, mistress. Wine would go to my head. I'd rather, to be honest, partake in other sorts of wine." 

"Yes?" 

"The one served only after sunfall." 

She said so calmly, with barely a smile, and yet a note of shyness the pontiff could discern. Fausta smiled, enjoyed a sip. Her own harvest was not at all bad.

"You are a freedwoman, Arcadia. You are no longer the slave girl I purchased twelve years ago. Why do you fidget? Speak like a citizen. Demand what's yours." 

Arcadia met her gaze, yet couldn't hold it, and hid her eyes. She was, in a way, Fausta's greatest treasure. Purchased on a whim in the Subura - as a funny rarity, a daemon-girl with just a single horn intact out of a pair. Her people, when enslaved, were normally dehorned; perhaps the slavemaster took pity on the particular daemon as to give her an interesting, asymmetric look, adding to her beauty - and her price.

"With that I struggle, mistress. You ask a taxing act of me." 

"Do I?" 

The daemon paused, and thought her next few words. She changed, with years. But a part of the Arcadia of yore persisted: a sweet and timid part. 

"You do, mistress. There are things… things I cannot do. No matter how I am." 

Fausta leaned in. They sat opposing each other, separated only by a small table, where their cups rested. The pontiff gazed at her dear servant in the eyes. 

"You are my pearl, Arcadia. My wonder and my gift from the gods. Tonight, I will serve you any wine you'd like."

As they joined in a kiss, a doll silently refilled the pontiff's cup. 

…

They moved to the guest room, seldom used other than for mutual pleasantries - be it of the mind or of the body. They drank more wine. The kiss mellowed the tired Arcadia; she changed to her usual tunic, adorned with a silver brooch, and accepted a new cup. They watered it down to savour the feeling and had it sweetened with thrakian sugar-spice. It was bliss.

"Tell me of your travels, Arcadia. Why did you take so long? I expected you a month ago, but got only a letter. Was there so much to do in Rome?" 

Arcadia sipped and licked her lips. Like many women of her kind, she was a wild, barbaric beauty; a bit shorter then Fausta herself, but widely built, with an exceptionally strong back and limbs subtly lined with muscle. Her features were soft, but with a sharp jaw; her deeply-set eyes and thick eyebrows gave her an intense gaze even when calm. Her hair was burnt auburn, carefully swept in such a way to hide the wide stubble of her lost horn and accent the one remaining. Her breasts were small, but shapely, with youthful supple and pleasant pertness. She was not the classic vision of Venus. A greek would find her far too crude, too wide. A roman would find her distasteful and foreign. 

Fausta found her sublime. 

"No. We stayed little in Rome. I've met Lucinius and Felix Junius and inquired."

"Is there talk?" 

"Some. The College is interested in your work, mistress. There is talk that not all of your secluded research is of well-spirited nature." 

Fausta frowned. 

"I hope that Felix was there to shut down such talk." 

Arcadia nodded.

"He was. He also tells that whatever rumors of your dealings circulate there now, they soon will be outdated by a more interesting tidbit." 

"That being?" 

"They say that Quintus Caecilius is getting very old. His position as Pontifex Maximus is under question, and soon, a race will start to take his place. Felix foresees a man named Gaius Julius will win the election." 

"I know of him. All the better, then, if he wins." 

Arcadia curved her neck. 

"Why so, mistress?" 

"Because Gaius Julius is a beast of politics and will turn the College into a farce. Within this farce, I'll be free to do my work with little interdiction." 

"If so you say, mistress. I know little of this Gaius beyond market talk." 

"What else did you learn in the city?" 

"Not much. I've pursued your leads, but most of them were cold. Not even in the Suburan closed markets were people willing to deal in this kind of stock." 

"Yet you didn't come back empty-handed." 

"No. I found a clue in the house of one of your patrons. The wife of Metellus. She held, as it happened, one of her questionable parties, and offered a servant of her client an invitation."

"Unheard of for anyone but her. Did you enjoy yourself?" 

Arcadia half-smiled. 

"A bit. She is nothing if not the image of decadence. Salts of Eros passed around like flour in a breadshop. But they have nothing on you, my mistress." 

Fausta bit into a biscuit, as if unconcerned, but sounded subtly cheered. 

"Don't try to appease the appeased, my servant." 

"I speak only humble truths." 

"You are the image of Roman earnesty, then." 

Arcadia, a daemon of roots Iberian, has grinned. 

"I would not object. Do you know that they invented a new nickname for the wife of Metellus?" 

"No. You will be the first to tell me."

"They call her Lesbia these days." 

Fausta chuckled. 

"Why? The woman is addicted to the shaft. Half of Rome frequents her mouth." 

"She discovered the writings of Sappho and took them to heart. They left a strong impression." 

"So now both halves of Rome find release in that insatiable woman. I envy her lifestyle." 

"Many do, if the talks are of any indication. But I digress quite strongly, mistress." 

"Continue, then." 

"When exhaustion took hold of the many guests, I found myself in a chance talk with two men whose names I don't recall. They were equites, one elfine, one human. Both clients of Crassus."

"Surprised to see a daemon in their midsts, no doubt." 

"Quite. And one wearing a citizen's ring. They partook in too much wine and were hospitable. We talked." 

"I wonder what about." 

"The party, and other things. The elfine inquired whether the rumour that a daemon's snatch is strong enough to snap a man's thing is true or not." 

Fausta laughed, heartily.

"I've heard that one. What did you answer?" 

"I offered to demonstrate." 

"Did he agree?" 

"Oh, yes. But he overindulged on wine and couldn't get it up." 

The pontiff smirked into her winecup and shifted her weight on the settee. 

"Shame! What clue could these upstart citizens offer, though?" 

"Tidbits. But telling. However… mistress…" 

Fausta reclined and set her cheek on her palm. She bit from a dried apple, eyes fixed on Arcadia. 

"Yes?" 

"Would you not prefer to check on the elfine yourself, first? The story can wait. I know how long you sought this prize, and how many leads you pursued with no reward. It must be unbearable for you to hold this talk while what you sought is right here, in your…" 

The pontiff held up her palm. Arcadia went silent, watching her mistress intently. In her face was, though concealed, a shred of guilt of a sudden realisation - the one you might expect from a loyal slave too late to catch a cue, or a young man failing in amourous conquests. This time, Fausta failed to conceal her smile, and pulled herself closer to her servant, her features subtly accentuated by the dim light.

"Did I say such a thing?" 

"No, mistress. But…" 

"But you rush to please me, my dear Arcadia. Know that, then, that it is getting dark, and the cruel chills of the Alps make my thinking sluggish in the evenings. I prefer my projects to begin on dawns, when the humours of the mind are the freshest. You should know that." 

Arcadia shifted on her settee, uncomfortable, and lowered her gaze while pressing her lips. The daemon's hands held her winecup with a strong, uncomfortable grip. 

"I do know this. But I assumed..." 

"You assumed wrong. I will not exchange the pleasure of an evening talk with a dear person for professional curiosity. I will examine my new stock tomorrow, after a brief, light ientaculum - and you, as always, will assist me. But this evening I will not work or care about work. And nor will you, Arcadia." 

A subtle streak of red hit the daemons face. She braved the Fates and looked up, where she met her mistress' gaze. How sweet she was, Fausta thought: how delicate the concealed emotion in her eyes, how demure the language of her body. 

"I… will try my best to do so, mistress. Yet even now, you tease me." 

"For months I was a roman matron with no household to terrorize. I am pent up in many ways." 

Arcadia suppressed a chuckle, but barely. 

"As you say, mistress. Shall I continue my tale? It is not as long as you might expect, nor as full of tribulation as I might've led you to believe." 

"And I will hear it to the end. More wine." 

"Of course." 

A new jug was offered, along with ice-cold water from the indoor well. Fausta favoured young wine. She found it best to drink it watered down to barely a third, but flavoured and sweetened to strengthen the taste; the ethyl would thus arrive in shallow, pleasant waves - and never gather strong enough to wrestle reason away from the mind. 

"We were talking of a pair of citizens…" 

"Yes. Equites in servitude of Crassus."

"And a clue they somehow provided." 

Arcadia nodded. 

"They didn't mean to. They were gossiping: jumping from topic to topic with no goal or strict reason. They spoke of the circus and of betting, then of women and tradition. The elfine told with feeling that the women of Rome lost their shame, and that they idolize whatever fad a ship may bring from Egypt or from Asia; that he said that while naked at a private orgy bothered him little." 

"Why not? What is done behind closed doors, and paid for by Lesbia, is not the same as what goes on the roman street." 

"I suppose. They spoke for a long time. I found it rude to leave them; they were also much too drunk to engage in the pleasures of the body, which suited me." 

"To abstain from the erotic while carousing on an orgy?" 

"I came in search of leads, not of carnal satisfaction. I took my part; it was enough." 

Fausta nodded.

"Fair." 

"In any way, after a while past they talked of a trip they shared to Sicily, an odd year ago. By this point, in all honesty, I was tired; I started with meek interest and descended into apathy. But in their drunken recount I heard a snippet that peaked my interest." 

"All of a sudden?" 

"Quite. They talked about a visit to Syracuse; of a man who hosted them, a noble of the Aurii, who lived there all the way since the time of the Dictator." 

"I know of his family. Marians, but indecisive and weak-willed. Were they not extinguished by the Proscriptions?" 

"What strength of will they didn't show in politics, my mistress, they showed in their decisive retreat. They escaped the carnage to Sicily, where they live to this day." 

"I see. What made the man worthy of a mention?"

"Not much. Himself he is of little note. They talked in length of his house and tastes, especially the food he served, which they highly praised. But what interested me was a description of his bodyguard." 

Fausta reclined and nodded. A rogue breeze grazed her, announcing the arrival of a cold evening. For now it was ignored. 

"They spoke of this bodyguard with a sincere awe - the kind you hear from a speaker who feels his own word insufficient to describe an experience. They told me - referring to me as "Rolon", by this point, perhaps confusing me with a friend - that this bodyguard was a woman who stood taller than any man. Their host lavished her in each description: he told that she was an amazon, a gladiatrix without equal in the Roman world." 

"But you do not believe in amazons." 

"I am yet to see one, mistress." 

Fausta smiled. 

"By now, I was attentive." - Arcadia continued. - "This bodyguard of Lucius Auris bewitched the men. They talked of her weak-voiced, with dreamy stutters. They said her body was a work of art."

"And her face?" 

"It was never shown. The bodyguard of Lucius Auris wears, or wore, a helmet at all times. Nobody but him has ever witnessed her visage."

Fausta chuckled. 

"A giveaway to those who know for what they look. I suppose that this has all but confirmed your suspicions, or gave them weight, at least." 

"I felt the spirits releasing me from their grasp, indeed. I asked them more of that bodyguard. As much as it seemed unlikely - to stumble on a lead through a chance talk with a pair of drunkards - it felt too fitting to refuse a further inquiry." 

"You made your way to Sicily?" 

"Not immediately. I asked around. I found more rumours of that awe-inspiring female bodyguard. Tales of lust - and of fear. Allegedly she was obscenely strong, having killed, in the year of the Dictator, an assassin." 

"And where's the obscenity?" 

"She killed the man by strangulation - with a single hand." 

…

The rest of the story was straightforward. Arcadia decided to pursue the lead; while surely ghastly and barely reliable, it was the best she had. Clodia's purse and patronage acquired her a boat - a military two-row, straight from the arsenals of Crassus. The way to Sicily was short. 

Syracuse was welcoming, but Lucius Paullus Auris was not. He would not trust a daemon, even bearing an iron ring. Perhaps the ring was the exact reason for his distrust. It was the Sullan reforms that allowed a pontifical servant-scribe, male or female, to bear such a symbol; the connection must have spurred his slight. He refused to see Arcadia, blaming business and other time-consuming dealings. 

"Hmm." - Fausta murmured. - "To refuse a pontifical scribe is condemning. Did you press him?"

"Yes. My unofficial requests were denied. An official request could not be abstained from with ease. I used that approach." 

"What were your findings?"

"Numerous. Many banal. But the Fates were smiling on me." 

Lucius Auris was indeed in possession of the tale-inspiring bodyguard. That he evaded attention from the City until now was a peculiar joke of the Gods, for he did very little to hide his treasured slave-guardian. 

"The greeks of Syracuse cared little for an amazon, I'd guess." - Fausta shrugged. - "They never fought the Teutones and the Cimbri. For them, it was an Italian affair; the stuff of traders telling tales and soldier-drunkards lavishing their pay. They didn't suspect."

"They didn't. You're right, mistress. While in Sicily, I asked around. Most knew of the event, of course. The many consulships of Marius were not unnoticed, even there. But all they knew of the invaders were rumours and white lies. They did not make the connection between an old war and the bizarre slave of Lucius Auris. They considered him their peer and granted him the benefit of doubt." 

"How did you acquire this gladiatrix, then? I doubt the man had the will to part with such a treasure." 

"He wasn't willing, that's for sure. But Sicily is Roman land. To keep the slave was in objection with Roman law. The ruling of Marius has no place for argument or Rostran talk. To hold a Teuton or a Cimbri, even as a slave, to not give them the death Marius proscribed was to break a law. I had no proof that this slave was indeed of those two tribes; but Lucius Auris gave himself away." 

"I hope you paid. I could do without another enemy." 

"You didn't get one. I was subtle. I did not threaten, but described potential consequences." 

"A threat in all but form. Did he agree right then?"

"No. It took a few days. Money broke the stalemate. I asked Lesbia for funds to bribe the man." 

Fausta sighed and hid her eyes behind a palm.

"I'll have to visit the infernal woman and explain myself, then. How much did she provide?" 

"A tiny fortune. I sent a letter with an allerine pidgeon, and got the sum from a trustee."

The pontiff shifted and groaned, rubbing her temples. 

"Are you angry, mistress?"

"No. I trust your choice and your approach. But now I'll have to find a way to impress Clodia, and I do not look forward to being locked between her thighs."

"Why? The woman is gorgeous in every way."

"Gorgeous, but overused. It'll take hours."

Arcadia took a hurried sip to hide her involuntary smirk.

"I digress. Lesbia's time will come, but not today. You finally had your hand on what I sought, thus. What did you make of it?" 

"Not much yet, mistress. After all, Auris was now free of his lawless property - and I possessed it in his stead. I had to plan a careful return. It occupied my mind." 

"You could blame any suspicion on me. After all, you transact on my behalf." 

"You know that I could not, mistress. Do not jest in such a way. My trip to Ienua was to be simple; the boat of Clodia still offered me its service and its crew knew better than to pursue idle curiosity. But I still had to maintain secrecy. I could not allow rumours." 

"Wise. But before you continue…" 

Arcadia looked her mistress in the eyes and saw there curiosity. 

"I know I said I'll forgo discussion of the professional, for today. But… tell me… what is that slave-gladiatrix like? Were the rumours true, at least partially?"

Fausta chose her words carefully. She was not entirely honest with her servant, of course. They both knew. She was burning. She wanted to see her new subject, the fruit of Arcadia's sleuthing toil, right now. She wanted so ever since she realized who her guests were. She waited long. It was her only lead, the only potential solution to the standstill of her research. 

But Fausta knew better. She gave her curiosity but one concession. Arcadia shut her eyes and nodded. 

"The rumours did not lie, mistress. The slave-gladiatrix of Lucius Auris is an elfine of the Teutones, a giant standing almost a pace and a gradus tall. Her body is a work of art. She looks as if she is a statue given life - too perfect to believe." 

Fausta nodded. 

"I see. I am satisfied." 

The pontiff looked outside, where the sun had almost set and pigmented the sky in a cool crimson. The chills of the Cisalpine have grown stronger, shifting, intermixing into winds. They howled their way down the slopes of the great mountain, taking hold, reminding everyone that nature ruled this place. This is not Rome, where men, elfine and ludex stood lords above the land. 

This is the Cisalpine. A wild, tranquil and cruel place, where the Italian ends and the barbaric begins. 

"Arcadia, I will take my leave. The evening prayer to the Gods is due. Enjoy a bath and wait for me. We'll talk more then." 

"I will do so, mistress. Thank you." 

Fausta stood up and offered her servant a friendly bow before disappearing into the gentle shade of the hallway. Evening was the time of the Gods. 

…

The last rays dimmed, consumed by the horizon. Shadows stretched and mellowed, drowned in the descending dark. Lamps were lit, and dolls were tending to the flames. The howling winds subsided: having pushed away the midday warmth, they moved their languid mass between the hills and slopes, just barely venturing inside the house. In the atrium, Fausta prayed. She harboured dislike for the City, but to her elected role and duties she paid respect.  
To hate the Roman way as Fausta did you had to be a Roman - and to be a Roman, some things you had to have ingrained. 

She petitioned the Pantheon and the household gods. She offered sacrifice and burned it, upon the Blaze Flamenica, the holy fire of the Gods. She asked them for success and nothing more. Let there be glory for those who wished for it and notoriety upon those who deserve it. Fausta wanted only to see it all through to the end. 

She even rubbed the triple guardian-statuette of Priapus, the Penile One. Inlaid into an alcove right beside the entrance, three palm-sized forms of the ever-erect god stood watch: one of the god leisurely laid down, one of him sitting, deep in dirty thoughts, and one where he stands, toiling a field. Each was made of silver, but the phallus, as per tradition, was cut from wood. In a different home, Priapus would stay wary above the vestibule, ready to proverbially rape any intruder daring to come uninvited. A magos worth his title had other, more practical ways to ensure the safety of his dwelling. But that triple statuette of the Great Penile One has taken a humorous, personal meaning for Fausta; a connection quite beyond prediction.

"Are you not my patron now, Priapus? I set upon myself to make for you a worthy rival." 

The elfine chuckled to herself and signed a doll. 

"Myrmidia." 

"Yes, my mistress." 

"Light the path to the hillside shrine. I'll offer one last prayer for today." 

"It will be done." 

"Prepare my bedroom, after that."

"It will be done. But it would seem that mistress Arcadia has already given orders to that regard." 

"Hmm? Did she?" 

"She asked for a comb and a pair of sharp scissors, among other things." 

Fausta smiled. The doll could not discern a sultry smile from any other; what did it matter if she could? But any other wouldn't fail to see how pleased the pontiff was. 

"She did? All the better, then. Are you busy with any immediate task, Myrmidia?" 

"Nothing beyond your orders, mistress." 

"Fetch me the half-mask, then. I will don it in the house." 

The doll bowed. She stood there, silently, expecting any other wish; when Fausta added nothing, the doll turned and went without a sound. 

…

An hour passed.

Darkness was deep when Fausta came back. The pontiff shivered and made her way. 

Her bedroom was sparsely lit. To see it is to conclude that the master of the house was a strict stoic. Fausta smiled at the idea. What was she? Her dealings were a corruption of Eros, Epicureanic in nature, perhaps, but with a decadent perversion in its core. Was she a stoic? 

She couldn't say. In Rome, to declare adherence to the styles is to declare political allegiance. Fausta cared little for the Senate. She was barred from its politics by gender and was content with it completely; thus, she didn't feel a rush to choose a side. 

Perhaps she just prefered sturdiness to pure decorum. 

Arcadia was there. A gown adorned her shoulders, a thin garment that hid nothing. Her back, defined and chiseled, a feature of her people, shifted under the fabric as she attended to her instruments. 

Fausta lingered at the doorsill, watching, silently. The Cisalpine spring was cold and harsh almost till the summer. But now, seeing the figure of Arcadia, her lovely Arcadia, the pontiff felt warm. 

"Am I in such a dissarrey, Arcadia, that you'd rush for the scissors on the very first night?" - Fausta asked, announcing herself. Arcadia didn't turn, but from a shift in her single visible cheek the pontiff knew she smiled. 

"No, mistress. I am merely selfish. To groom a pretty mane of hair, dark like raven wing…" 

"You partied too much in the company of Lesbia. Her wordforms rubbed on you." 

"Perhaps. But I am not one to play with words. Like my people, I am frank. Not once was I bored attending you. Never once did it make me discontent. I like it very much." 

"No, indeed the infernal woman made an impact on you. Never did you honey your words so!" 

Arcadia turned, then. A glint in her eyes, a smile more playful than sultry. 

"Just sit down." 

So the pontiff did. 

...

Arcadia had a way with scissors. Her hand was strong, imbued with deliberation and precision, never wandering, always controlled. Yet it was gentle. She parted strands and muttered complaints; most were idle, but some true. 

"You are neglected, mistress. What of the oils I left you? I believe the instructions were quite simple and clear, and left in writing." 

"Ah. That is easy to explain. Between the workload and the house…" - Fausta started, feeling, for a second, like a husband caught.

"Hush." 

Fausta obliged and let Arcadia complain. To be pampered and cared for was a simple bliss, known to every man, elfine and ludex, rich and poor, freedman and slave. If they lacked it, they would wish for it all the same. To be loved. The simplest pleasure, and, to many, the greatest. 

As the scissors took to split hairs, the pontiff surveyed herself in the mirror, a thing of finely polished bronze; itself more expensive than any other furniture or object in the room. 

She looked good. It was a given: her looks were tuned, handmade, a product of ritual and intelligent design. A tall, lithe woman, more elegant than voluptuous, pleasing to the eye more so than for the hand. Her breasts were small and strongly shaped, a little, dark nipple adorning each mound. Sharp shoulder blades stick through skin like little axes, though her long, dark hair hid them usually from sight. She was thin and elegant. Grace and nobility were her descriptors. Untarnished in every way - but a single blemish to her form she weirdly kept. An old wound - her memento, she called it - laid long and ugly on her back, stretched from the back of her neck to her armpit. She thought many times of covering it, melding it off her flesh. 

In the end, she never did. She liked this part of her body: a body arcanely sculpted to be without a fault, the body of a perfect elfine woman. This wound, this old scar, a memory of a samnite blade gave her body a validity. That she was not, in effect, a statue, proverbially cut from the marble of flesh as a tribute to the feminine aesthetic. That her body was the body of Fausta, the hermit-pontiff, and on it bore the legacy of the long road she walked. 

In a while, Arcadia was done. A doll extinguished the flame, and in the soft darkness, in the farthest corner of Italy, they made love. Two women, removed by birth and class, by Fate and race, by ability and strength were joined through a bond that struck the heart. They hungered for each other. They explored each other anew. They damned their separation and celebrated their reunion through the simplest form of love: the eros of the body. 

…

Night took reign. The winds have settled, their howling now meek and occasional. Dolls took to their nightly routines. They had no need for sleep, but in time Fausta learned that they become erratic when left with nothing to do, so she offered them habits to soothe that, however much it was unnecessary. Night was not the time of dolls: they served their due during the day. 

Night was the time of the Catcher. 

All was calm, for a while - until dead after midnight. Luna was low in the sky, coloring the house into a pale, cool shade. Few fires were lit: a lamp, here and there, and the Blaze Flamenicus, which Fausta let burn through the hours of dark, until dawn. The pontiff slept curled, embraced and thus tranquil; a smile of content arching her lips. 

It was then when a terrible sound broke the stillness. Of shattered stone and bent metal, it reverberated through the porticoes and corridors, going back and forth through the house by way of terrible echoes. A commotion soon followed suit: the dolls were agitated immediately and flocked from their places of rest to whatever intruder daring to break the calm of their master. 

A fight then ensued - though accented not by sounds of metal, but of flesh. 

Arcadia woke at once; her sleep was light by habit, and she rushed to her dagger before even a thought of covering her body occured in the daemon's head. Hearing the continued commotion, she woke her mistress: Fausta's sleep was deep and blessed by the brothers of Somnia with pleasant dreams, thus she woke irritated and unhappy. 

"What is it, Arcadia? Is it the prize you brought me, trying to take an opportunity for freedom?" 

"No, mistress. The sounds come from the Pits." 

"Ah. I may have an idea what it is." 

"You do, mistress?" 

Fausta yawned then nodded.

"I might. While you were away I tried a newer serum, one of slightly higher purity than others, on a barbar woman of the Gaul. Perhaps her metamorphosis was not quite as complete as I had thought…" 

Arcadia pressed her lips. 

"Is this one also to learn her lesson, mistress?" 

Fausta smiled and ran her fingers through the hair of her servant. 

"As they should." 

Arcadia frowned. 

"One day, mistress, you'll make one too powerful even for you to tame." 

"Then such will be the will of the Gods - to punish me for my transgression, for repeating the forbidden metamorphosis of Hermaphroditus and the nymph Salmacis. But it will not be today. The Catcher has her: in her rage, she doesn't know it yet." 

The one-horned scribe sighed and let her blade recline back into its scabbard. She covered herself and followed her mistress into the corridor, itself barely lit by the meek fire of a lamp; the light, it's source hidden by a corner, did little for the eye during an hour so dark. They listened - and waited. 

The sound of the scuffle subsided, but a fleshy, raw note, monotonously repeated, persisted and moved closer - until the source of it showed. 

As she walked, she pulled one doll by hair, and had another forced upon her member. The one impaled was pressed unto the she-cock by a strong grip on the shoulder; that a mere hand press was enough to hold a woman on a penis was itself, to anyone, obscene. Up and down, the doll was moved, her body otherwise motionless, and a terrible distortion showed itself on her midriff with each jerk. The brutal process took just seconds; the release that followed was short and inhumane. There was a pumping, raw, wet sound, ugly to the ear yet enticing in its pure and simple meaning. Before the eyes, the doll distended, her middle bloated to a heavy, gravid form. 

As the corner was rounded she held the impaled Myrmidia by her neck and pulled her off the turgid manhood - and at the same time jerked up the other doll-sister by her dark hair. 

It was, indeed, the gallic woman, freed, by her own hand, from the confines of the Pits. She let out a guttural roar, announcing her presence to all who dared avert their gaze from the sight of her carnal conquest. A wildness was in her eyes, a fire not reflected but inane. Her sanity was gone. No words would she utter but the sounds of an animal - a predatory animal at the height of its might. The dolls she held as trophies - or, Fausta reasoned, as a warning. 

Both dolls were now bloated ruins, meek and without motion. Their midriffs jutted forward, as would a pregnant woman's, but the semen soaking their bodies left little to imagine of what set them in such a state. Their womanhoods looked desolate, forced apart and left to gape, dripping mixed fluid at a pulsing pace. Fausta didn't bother to be shocked. The dolls were fine, even if seemingly catatonic. They had their orders, which even now they followed. If the mistress was not in danger, they should rather submit than damage the subjects of the Pits. To the gallic woman, who didn't know better, it brought great pleasure. The savage conceit of her face was proof of this. Her eyes were affixed on Fausta; Arcadia she ignored. 

"Ah, daughter of Gaul, you bring me such delight." - the pontiff-hermit murmured, playful sultry in her voice. - "Driven to this animal state, you didn't run - but rather chose to ruin your oppressor." 

The woman grinned - pleased to hear her chosen target, pleased to see she wouldn't run. She released her grip on the bloated dolls, then, letting them fall, midriff-first, onto the floor. They fell abruptly, and, on landing, jerked; the sound was unpleasant, akin to a deeply soaked rug. With the strong force projected upon their midriffs, the dolls expelled a wave of semen from within, a pulsing jet that baffled mind with it's improbable amount. Their faces were emotionless, as always. But their eyes followed their master intently. The hermaphrodite wouldn't care, nor did she notice. Of her show of strength and conquest she was greatly proud, and bared her teeth in celebration; never once has Fausta seen her grin so purely, from the heart. 

Indeed, the gallic subject went through her final change that night. Her member was longer, now easily beyond a cubit and a palm; its form distorted, adorned with bulbous nubs along the crown and sagging to the left under its own weight. The musk of manhood was intense, an odor raw and by its intensity unpleasant. The body of the woman changed slightly, just as well: she stood a finger taller, an inch or two, no more, her shoulders widened, or maybe it was the bulgening of muscle she possessed even before the change, and her legs stood wider, heftier at the hip and foreleg. Other changes Fausta didn't notice - beyond the great, disproportionate increase in strength, or function of the muscle, which was evident empirically - even if not immediately apparent. 

She tore from an iron cage door set in stone and mortar to get here, after all.  
It was not, thus, an idle risk - yet Fausta took it, for she knew more than her midnight contender. The pontiff observed the woman; the gaelic she-beast took a step forward, in turn watching the pontiff intently, lowering her stance.

"Don't hesitate, child of Gaul." - Fausta beconed. - "Come hither - and learn your place."

The woman leapt. 

She was such a beautiful thing, Fausta mused during this brief moment. Strong, hardy. The beastly grimace she adorned. The prowl of a hunting animal fit for her barbaric charm, a vision of a wildman berserk uncaring to anything but her mark. 

In this one jump she almost flew. In a leap, she traversed half the distance. By the second one, she reached her chosen prey. 

Fausta let her push her, let her grab the wrists and pull them up, let her swing her herculean member like a club, let her produce a triumphant growl. A punishment is only effective when the punished knows his deed, and the deed is best known while one is in the middle of it. So said Marius, once, when explaining why he would let the hastati falter before ordering the principes to push them back into the fray. 

Like cowardice teaches best when cut at the root, so does a triumph snuffed at the moment of absolute height serves as the ultimate lesson in humility. 

The pontiff, ignoring the hold of the woman, whispered words in elder tongues, older than man or elfine. A language of the shadows and the dregs within them. 

The Catcher heard, and came. 

It was a bizarre creature. Where it dwelt, the shadows laid heavier, deeper, bearing depth and shape. It moved without a sound. It had no form, and yet it had many. It was a living terror, a manifestation of creeping dread that stems from deep, unlit caves. A predator you never get to see; a shade of doom. A monster of a hundred invisible hands.

It took so much to make it tame, to call upon it, to find a language that it'll heed. Yet it was worth it. The Catcher was the castle walls of the Hermit-Pontiffs domain, its guard - and executioner. 

The gallic woman tried to make her move. She tried to move one hand to grab her prize, to feel the yielding flesh of her tormentor, yet she found herself unable. Her body would not budge, no matter the efforts of the muscles. To her praise, she didn't falter nor let herself be kept in the clutches of surprise; within a moment she thrashed about and howled, fighting whatever force dared bind her - but to no avail. Not a limb would be freed. On the height of her beastly victory her freedom was snatched. 

The Catcher had her. 

When she met Fausta's gaze, when she saw her thin, unpleasant smile the gallic woman understood. She redoubled her efforts, thrusting her body from side to side, growling, face warped in a mask of terror and bestial animosity. In that single desire - to free herself, to take her prize, to ravage it, destroy it in a bout of lust beyond words or understanding - was her entire being. Fausta slowly and methodically denied it. 

The Catcher then pressed harder. Faint white hand marks appeared all over the body of the woman; she whimpered and resumed her growl. She started shaking her hips, in the hope, perhaps, that a single strike of her member upon Fausta's body would suffice.

Arcadia watched from the doorsill and then retreated back inside. There was no point in watching. It all happened before. Her mistress was a pontiff. If nothing else, she held to a tradition. Over beasts, the pontiff told her once, one reigns with terror - yet offers them respite when all other hopes were broken and denied. Whenever a subject tried to enforce their newfound power upon the mistress or dared try and escape their holds, Fausta would teach them the lesson of Icarus - though not by the heat of Sol, but through its complete, cold opposite. 

Fausta watched her subject with a look of whimsy. The woman was magnificent. Her genitalia, absurd before, was beyond rationality by now. Fit for a beast of burden or a horse, and even then the growths upon the crown and pulsing veins gave it a look of something monstrous rather than bestial. With every jerk of the body the member responded by a lazy sway; too heavy, too rigid with blood and humours to wobble and shake. To imagine a woman taking it is absurd. To imagine the body holding the fluids required for its prodigious discharges was ridiculous. 

And yet there it was. 

Fausta whispered again to the Catcher. Enough was enough. The lesson had to be dispensed. Curiosity can be fulfilled at any point - but an act of discipline has to be timely. 

The pontiff uttered a command, and the Catcher pulled. 

It did so slowly, with strong grip, overpowering the changeling woman, dragging while keeping her upright and facing her tormentor. With every thrash, the Catcher would strengthen its grip. Until colour would leave the skin. Until marks would be burned into the body. 

The hermaphrodite howled, it's voice warped into a mix of bestial growls and pitiful human bawling. Nothing she tried would work. She felt powerful, mighty like never before - but it was insufficient. The Catcher had her. When she was dragged past her bloated victims, she saw that they stood upright - as cold and uncaring as before, despite their gravidity. She howled again, then: understanding, perhaps, how illusory was her rush for freedom and revenge. Her cage was merely an illusion: the real bars were slithering in the darkness around her all those times, and now, she was being forced back into her corner by the warden. 

Something changed in her, then. She stopped trying to break away, and instead tried to grab her member, to Fausta's surprise and tepid interest. Why was that? Why was she seeking release? Perhaps she somehow knew of the power her semen would hold over an unprotected mind. Was that an instinctual knowledge, a part of the change that took over her body? 

Fausta smiled. She'd have to experiment and find out. But for now, she had to be stern. The monstrous woman wanted to use her for release. To offer her any would be unbecoming, and thus, she whispered another command. 

The she-beast whimpered, then uttered a pained shriek. Her member distorted, grabbed many times by invisible hands at every spot. She locked eyes with Fausta, panicked, suffering - but there was no respite in the emerald gaze of her master. This was a punishment to the end.

She was dragged through the house and the atrium to the long, thin wing that led to the pits. Dolls witnessed from all sides: from the shadows, they observed, an uncaring audience for the spectacle of punishment. Fausta preferred it this way. Let the subject know that their failure was witnessed. Let their moment of utter, helpless defeat be burned into their bestial minds. Let them know who torments them, who owns them, who grants them relief and forces punishment upon them. Let them know the face of Fausta, the Hermit-Pontiff, and let them fear it, so they'll never come out of their cages again. 

Was it egomaniacal? 

Perhaps, Fausta mused. But if it makes the subjects easier to handle and her project easier to complete, she'll be an egomaniac. 

The Pits were silent. Only three were used these days, and their inhabitants were quiet. They knew the signs, the meaning of what proceeded, and they were scared. Fausta smiled. 

With a final whimper, the gallic woman was pushed back into her Pit. The door, as the pontiff suspected, was ripped clean off; the metal was bent, ever so slightly, but it was not the bars that gave in, but the mortar. A pity, but the door was harder to replace than it was to set in a few new bricks. Thus, Fausta was happy. 

She offered the punished creature one last gaze. The Catcher threw her against the walls of the Pit, where she now sat, shrivelling, hiding her face and sobbing. A subtle shake has taken her; was it of pure terror or a release from pain, Fausta did not know nor care. She turned and went back. Let the monstrous, beautiful woman, tall and mighty, with a member to rival the gods, cry and weep. She has a role to play, and it is not a conqueror's. 

Fausta walked slowly and deliberately, measuring each step. She walked past the ruined wall and the broken, bent door. She swayed her hips, ignoring the evening chill. With each step, the Hermit-Pontiff listened.

There was one final test, one final piece of knowledge to be taken from the carnal outbreak of the gaelic woman. There is a tendency to beasts, as Fausta learned with time, to show unique behavior when put into a corner. As Diane made them, two choices are given to those stripped of a retreat: submission, the lying on the back and the display of one's belly, the choice of meek and weak, or a final, suicidal push of wild defiance. The subjects of Fausta were more beasts than thinking subjects of the Gods, and thus Diane's Choice stood before the gaelic woman, struck into the corner of the Pit. And Fausta waited, walking slowly, giving her a final chance for freedom. 

And she took it. 

Her sobs muffled and changed in pitch. A wet sound was heard as she stood up. Fausta walked and kept walking. Thus the lesson was perfected. For a beast cornered attacks for one reason: because there is still Hope, and Hope, as Romans know, is resilient, and succumbs only after Reason itself has perished. 

The she-monster leapt. 

Fausta did not turn to look, but let her lips curve. As she kept walking, she heard weeps, and the sound of flesh pummeled by invisible hands. Let the beast learn: that the magos never truly turns his back, as on every side of his body he has eyes. 

She instructed the dolls on what to do and went to sleep, which she did with the great pleasure of a job well-done. 

…

There was, of course, another witness to that night's events, even if she did so more by ear than eye. By no means she was forgotten. She was cared for, though from her cage she was not yet released. She sat quietly, sleepless, and listened. 

The mark of slave she bore for forty years now, maybe more. Her given name she has forgotten - by choice, and not by trauma, since to bear it now would be an affront to the Wild Gods. She went thus by the name she got from her masters. 

Titania, they named her. In memory of ancient monsters that their gods defeated. So she was told. 

She didn't care much for her situation. She was tempered by the years. Whatever flame burned in her in old years past has dulled, if not died out. She expected little of her new master. She learned a lot of Romans and their ways in those past years, and the main lesson that she mustered was such: there was nothing more Roman than killing other Romans - as long as the reason was just. And thus she knew what to expect: to kill when told, and nothing more has crossed her mind. 

At first.

But something was not right. A fleeting feeling of unease. The slavegirls that tended to her, empty-eyed, whom each and every looked like sisters and would not exchange a single word. The beastly howling in the night, produced by a human throat. And the horrible stench of the arcane, which persevered throughout this mountain domain, and the subtle, malevolent shift of the deepest shadows that surrounded her. 

Titania listened until the howls subsided, then closed her eyes and dosed away. 

In the old years, she was known as Morna, daughter of Yigrn, and in the Cimbrian Wars, she was enslaved. 

...


End file.
